Gone With the Wind boils down to a story about a spoiled Southern girl's hopeless love for a married man. Producer David O. Selznick managed to expand this concept, and Margaret Mitchell's best-selling novel, into nearly four hours' worth of screen time, on a then-astronomical 3.7-million-dollar budget, creating what would become one of the most beloved movies of all time. Gone With the Wind opens in April of 1861, at the palatial Southern estate of Tara, where Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) hears that her casual beau Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) plans to marry "mealy mouthed" Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). Despite warnings from her father (Thomas Mitchell) and her faithful servant Mammy (Hattie McDaniel), Scarlett intends to throw herself at Ashley at an upcoming barbecue at Twelve Oaks. Alone with Ashley, she goes into a fit of histrionics, all of which is witnessed by roguish Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), the black sheep of a wealthy Charleston family, who is instantly fascinated by the feisty, thoroughly self-centered Scarlett: "We're bad lots, both of us." The movie's famous action continues from the burning of Atlanta (actually the destruction of a huge wall left over from King Kong) through the now-classic closing line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Holding its own against stiff competition (many consider 1939 to be the greatest year of the classical Hollywood studios), Gone With the Wind won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress (Vivien Leigh), and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, the first African-American to win an Oscar). The film grossed nearly 192 million dollars, assuring that, just as he predicted, Selznick's epitaph would be "The Man Who Made Gone With the Wind." Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Genre: Epic
- Category Romantic Epic, Historical Epic
- Theme: Opposites Attract, Love Triangles, Star-Crossed Lovers, Women During Wartime, Servants and Employers
- Rating: G - Adult Situations
- Studio: Warner Home Video
- Language: English
- Format: DVD
- Release Date: November 17, 2009
- Lead Actor: Vivien Leigh, Hattie McDaniel
- Supporting Actor: Harry Davenport, Laura Hope Crewes, Marcella Martin, Carroll Nye, Rand Brooks, Zack Williams, Everett Brown, Alicia Rhett, Howard Hickman, Butterfly McQueen, Ann Rutherford, George Reeves, Evelyn Keyes, Victor Jory, Fred Crane, Barbara O'Neil, Oscar Polk, Thomas Mitchell, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lester Dorr, Tommy Kelly, Leslie Howard, Si Jenks, Louise Carter, Clark Gable, Trevor Bardette, Marjorie Reynolds, James Bush, William Stack, Emerson Treacy, John Wray, Tom Seidel, Frank Coghlan Jr., Olivia de Havilland, Guy Wilkerson, Ralph Brooks, Lee Murray, Philip Trent, Harry Strang, Frank Faylen, Lillian Kemble-Cooper, Mickey Kuhn, Cammie King, Ward Bond, Blue Washington, Yakima Canutt, Olin Howland, J.M. Kerrigan, Adrian Morris, Irving Bacon, Wallis Clark, George Meeker, Robert Elliott, Isabel Jewell, Louis Jean Heydt, William Stelling, Ernest Whitman, Paul Hurst, Lee Phelps, William Bakewell, Tom Tyler, Eric Linden, John Arledge, Roscoe Ates, George Hackathorne, Eddy Chandler, Ona Munson, Cliff Edwards, Jackie Moran, William McClain, Terry Shero, Mary Anderson, Alberto Morin, Jane Darwell, Leona Roberts
- Director: Victor Fleming
awards
- Awards: Academy Awards (8)
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Screenplay, 1939, Sidney Howard
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actress, 1939, Hattie McDaniel
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Actress, 1939, Vivien Leigh
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Director, 1939, Victor Fleming
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Art Direction, 1939, Lyle Wheeler
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Color Cinematography, 1939, Ernest Haller, Ray Rennahan
- Winner: Academy Awards, Best Editing, 1939, James Newcom, Hal Kern
- Winner: Academy Awards, Honorary and Other Awards, 1939, William Cameron Menzies
- Nominations: Academy Awards (5)
- Nominee: Academy Awards, Best Actor, 1939, Clark Gable
- Nominee: Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actress, 1939, Olivia de Havilland
- Nominee: Academy Awards, Best Original Score, 1939, Max Steiner
- Nominee: Academy Awards, Best Special Effects, 1939, Jack Cosgrove, Arthur Johns, Fred Albin
- Nominee: Academy Awards, Best Sound, 1939, Thomas T. Moulton